Vending Basics for New Operators
How Tap to Start, Select First, and Multivend work.
A card reader can take payment before or after the customer chooses, and some machines can sell several items for one payment. Here is how each vending mode works and when to use it.
Select First: choose, then pay.
The customer makes a selection, the machine shows the price, and the customer taps, inserts, or swipes to pay that exact amount. The product vends and the sale is done.
It suits most machines and most customers. People see the price before they pay, and the card is charged once, for exactly what they chose. Start a new reader here.
Tap to Start: pay, then choose.
The customer taps first. The reader authorizes an amount you set, at or above the highest price in the machine, and the machine lets the customer choose. The card is charged only the price of what vended.
Use it on a machine that wants credit before it takes a selection. Some customers’ banks show the authorized amount as pending until the sale settles.
Multivend: several items, one payment.
The customer pays once and picks more than one item, and the machine vends each one. Dryline records it as one sale with every product it dispensed.
It suits break rooms, teams, and families, where one person buys for others and would rather not tap again for every item. Multivend works on Dryline and has been run on a Seaga SM1600.
Your machine decides which modes it can use.
The machine’s controller runs every sale, and the reader follows its lead. Most machines that take MDB cashless handle Select First. Multivend also needs a machine that can sell more than one item in a session, a setting often called multiple vend or shopping cart in the machine’s menu, and some machines do not have it.
The machine’s manual names its settings. If yours is unclear, a setup review is there to go through it with you.
Which mode to choose.
Start with Select First
It works on most machines, and customers see the price before they pay.
Move to Tap to Start
When a machine does not ask for payment after a selection, set the authorized amount at or above its highest price.
Turn on Multivend
When the machine has a multiple vend setting and customers often buy more than one item.
The mode is a setting on each Rain Pay reader, so two machines can run different modes, and you can change one without new hardware. New to the connection behind all of this? Read How MDB works.
Questions about vending modes
- Which vending mode should a new reader start on?
- Select First. Change to Tap to Start only if the machine does not ask for payment after a selection.
- Why is a customer charged less than the authorized amount in Tap to Start?
- The authorization only holds an amount large enough for any item in the machine. The charge is the price of what vended.
- Does Multivend work with Dryline?
- Yes. Dryline records one sale with each product dispensed. The machine itself has to support selling several items in one session, which its manual will say.
More vending basics.
Why offer cashless
What card and phone payments add for customers and for you, and what a machine needs to take them.
How MDB works
How the controller runs the coin mechanism, bill validator, and card reader on one connection.
Planograms
The map of a machine: what goes in each slot, at what price, and how full to fill it.
Stocking strategies
A first product mix, par levels, rotation, and restocking the machines that need it.
Starting a vending business
Licenses, sales tax, insurance, machines, locations, commissions, pricing, and routes.
See the modes on a real machine.
Book a 20-minute demo and we will walk through the Rain Pay reader and Dryline on real screens.